@Solaryellow said:
@zaryia
I don't care about your links.
However, neither the 1997 Flores settlement nor a 2008 human trafficking law cited in that release in any way stipulated that the government separate children from their parents
Probably why you should read the links. It's mass research on these laws, Trump lied to say Dems are to blame for what is currently occurring. No way around this. He was fact checked.
You guys have no sourcing to show what he stated was true. You lost the "debate".
Just read this so you can stop posting,
THE FACTS:
Repeating the assertion does not make it true. The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy is responsible for spurring family separations. No law mandates it.
"Zero tolerance" means that when a family is caught sneaking into the U.S., the parents now are routinely referred for criminal prosecution, even if they have few or no previous offenses. That typically means detention for the adults, pending their trial. Under U.S. protocol, if parents are jailed, their children are separated from them because the children aren't charged with a crime.
Until the policy was announced in the spring, such families were usually referred for civil deportation proceedings, not requiring separation.
The zero tolerance policy was announced April 6, and the policy was put into action in May. From April 19 to May 31, 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults, according to Homeland Security statistics obtained by The Associated Press. The figures are for people who tried to enter the U.S. between official border crossings.
Trump's repeated, but nonspecific references to a Democratic law appear to involve one enacted in 2008. It passed unanimously in Congress and was signed by Republican President George W. Bush. It was focused on freeing and otherwise helping children who come to the border without a parent or guardian. It does not call for family separation.
Why not just fix the problem with new legislation? Trump stated, inaccurately, that "the Democrats have control." Republicans control both houses of Congress. He meant that his party does not have a large enough majority to prevail without Democratic support.
Democrats, like many Republicans, abhor the family separations. They've objected fiercely to the zero tolerance policy that his administration instituted.
Trump's supporters in Congress have blamed the separations on court decisions, but that's also an evasion.
Courts have established the right of migrant children to be released from custody. They do not establish that right for parents, so the discrepancy can be used to keep adults behind bars while their children are not.
But the rise in split families comes from the administration practice to maximize criminal prosecutions and the manner in which authorities are carrying that out.
In 1997, the settlement of a class-action lawsuit set policies for the treatment and release of unaccompanied children who are caught at the border. The Flores settlement, named for a teenage girl who brought the case in the 1980s, requires the government to release children from custody and to their parents, adult relatives or other caretakers, in order of preference. If those options are exhausted, authorities must find the "least restrictive" setting for the child who arrived without parents. The administration wants Congress to pass legislation overturning the settlement.
In 2015, a federal judge in Los Angeles expanded the terms of the settlement, ruling that it applies to children who are caught with their parents as well as to those who come to the U.S. alone. Other recent rulings, upheld on appeal, affirm the children's rights to a bond hearing and require better conditions at the Border Patrol's short-term holding facilities.
In 2016, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that child migrants who came to the border with parents and were held in custody must be released. The decision did not state parents must be released. Neither, though, did it require parents to be kept in detention, apart from their children.
What is incorrect?
Was the ‘Law to Separate Families’ Passed in 1997 or ‘by Democrats’?
There is no federal law mandating children and parents be separated at the border; a policy resulting in that outcome was enacted in May 2018.
Claims that the “law to separate families” was passed in 1997, those claims originated with a February 2018 Department of Homeland Security statement referencing “[l]egal loopholes [that] are exploited by minors, family units, and human smugglers.” The DHS statement claimed existing immigration policies “create a pull factor that invites more illegal immigration and encourages parents to pay and entrust their children to criminal organizations.”
However, neither the 1997 Flores settlement nor a 2008 human trafficking law cited in that release in any way stipulated that the government separate children from their parents:
A White House spokesman referred [Factcheck.org] to a DHS statement regarding a 1997 legal settlement and 2008 antitrafficking law affecting minors who are apprehended without a parent present:
Under the 1997 settlement, DHS could detain unaccompanied children captured at the border for only 20 days before releasing them to foster families, shelters or sponsors, pending resolution of their immigration cases. The settlement was later expanded through other court rulings to include both unaccompanied and accompanied children.
The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 requires unaccompanied minors from countries other than Mexico and Canada to be placed in the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or relatives in the U.S., while they go through removal proceedings. The bipartisan bill was approved by unanimous consent and signed by Bush.
But neither the court settlement nor the 2008 law require the Trump administration to “break up families.”
A cluster of rumors about the controversial separation of families at the border held that the policy came before the Trump administration, either stemming from a 1997 “law” or purported policies of previous administrations. Those claims were false. No federal law required or suggested the family separation policy announced by Attorney General Sessions in several sets of remarks during April and May 2018.
What is incorrect?
The president implied that children were being separated from their parents at the border because of a law enacted by Democrats.
Actually, the policy in question was enacted by his own administration.
On May 7, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a speech that "If you're smuggling a child, then we're going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don't want your child separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally. It's not our fault that somebody does that."
Sessions announced the policy in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Under U.S. law, entering the country illegally is a crime. The Trump administration has decreed that such attempts will be prosecuted, meaning the adults are detained, and any children who accompany them are separated.
White House chief of staff John Kelly told NPR's John Burnett earlier this month that "the children will be taken care of — put into foster care or whatever. But the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long. "
Advocates note that many families attempting to enter the U.S. are seeking asylum from gangs and criminal activities in their home countries, and as such are not breaking the law. The U.S. is obligated to accept asylum-seekers under U.S. and international law if they can show a "credible fear" of persecution or torture.
Lee Gelernt of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project said Tuesday that "Children are begging and screaming not to be separated from their parents, as they're hauled off to different cities. It's a harrowing situation, one that the president himself called horrible. No law even remotely requires the separation of children, and we filed a recent lawsuit arguing, in fact, that the Constitution prohibits this policy."
In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep Tuesday, former President Barack Obama's domestic policy director, Cecilia Muñoz, stated unequivocally that separating children from their parents was not a policy the Obama administration followed.
"The Obama administration did not do that, no. We did not separate children from their parents," Muñoz said. "This is a new decision, a policy decision put in place by the attorney general," which Muñoz said "puts us in league with the most brutal regimes in the world's history."
Still, the White House continues to blame Democrats for failing to act on immigration legislation. At a White House briefing Tuesday, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller attributed what he labeled "the current immigration and border crisis and all of the attendant concerns it raises" to the "exclusive product of loopholes in federal immigration laws that Democrats refuse to close."
However, Democrats are the minority party in both chambers of Congress. The Republican-led majority has yet to take up significant immigration legislation in the House this session, although Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has committed to holding votes this summer.
What is incorrect?
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